Archaeologica.org

Any way you could "cook" one of those iron pyrite rocks to see if what comes out of it looks anything like what you keep finding?

The point is that you couldn't build a blast furnace...that wouldn't prove anything unless you could show that they also had blast-furnace technology.

But a charcoal fire which heats a rock. I guess the question to be considered is " is accidental discovery a possibility here? "

I think it's plausible. Wanna come help me build a big ass fire?

I'm open to that sort of bribery Charley! Try me.

I did mention it to the wife. She's fine with it.

(I suspect she wants to kick me out of the house for a while.)

As I suggested before Min, nobody goes out of the way to discover how to smelt Iron ore, it must have been an accident, but what the Hell that accident could have been is a total mystery to me. If I can find somebody to publish some of my writings Charley so that I have some money I'll take you up on it.

First smelting: campfires
Smelting is a chemical reaction that requires a particular ore (that sometimes look like any other common sedimentary rock), a particular content of carbon and a particular temperature in order to produce the metal. Without knowledge of chemistry, it is impossible to predict if a given rock can be smelt or not, and what it will produce. Therefore, there is continuous debate to understand how the ancient people learned how to smelt.

Probably the first smelting was done by accident by making a campfire on top of tin or lead ores. That may accidentaly produce metallic tin and lead at the bottom of the campfire, as the temperatures to smelt tin and lead are easily obtained in a campfire. These metals can then be molten and cast in a campfire.

The earliest cast lead beads known today were found in the Çatal Höyük site in Anatolia (Turkey), and were dated of 6500BC. It is unclear when the earliest cast tin artifacts were made, given that tin is much more uncommon than lead, and earlier tin artifacts may have been reused to make bronze.

Although lead is a relatively common metal, it is too soft to be of much utility, so the first smelting of lead didn't have significant impact in the ancient world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smelting#Smelting_Basics

but what the Hell that accident could have been is a total mystery to me.

Like Charlie says....a big ass fire around the right type of rock and someone nearby who was more observant than usual saying " WTF is that?"

Nightime around the campfire may have been the highlight of the day.

Sure....that was before women invented headaches.